The Mummy's Curse (15 page)

Officer Finsilver arrived seconds later, huffing and puffing. “They were too fast!” he cried. “I couldn't stop them!”

Ignoring the sergeant, Cody raised her arms and called out, “Ms. Cassatt? It's me, Cody. You said you wanted a kid so you could get out of here? I'm the one who got us into this mess, so I'm volunteering.”

Sergeant Casey stared at her. “Oh no you're not! Not on my watch!”

“Smart move, girl!” Ms. Cassatt called out. “Now, hurry up. The rest of you, get out now! Or the mummy gets it.”

Cody turned and whispered her plan to the sergeant. He shook his head. “No way. Too dangerous,” he said.

She looked at Ms. Cassatt, who was standing about five feet away, her face drawn, eyes menacing. Between the sergeant and Ms. Cassatt sat a decorative sarcophagus large enough to hold a human body. The Plexiglas top lay open and had been pushed aside. Cody nodded to Luke. He took his cue and began crawling toward the front of the sarcophagus, keeping low to remain hidden by the massive artifact.

“Back off!” Ms. Cassatt yelled at the sergeant again. “I mean it. Once I'm out of here, you can have the kid back. Until then, she's my insurance policy. Clear the tunnel!”

Cody whispered to the sergeant, “Shine the light right in her face.”

The sergeant frowned but then did as she asked.
Ms. Cassatt immediately turned away from the blinding light. As she did, Luke stretched out on the floor on the sergeant's side of the tomb.

Meanwhile, Cody slipped her phone out of her pocket and prepared to press an app icon.

“Come here, you little brat!” Ms. Cassatt commanded Cody. “The rest of you, beat it!” She held the heavy statue over her head, ready to bring it down on the priceless mummy inside the open tomb.

Cody pressed the icon on her phone. A red light filled the dark room and began to pulsate.

“Miiiiirraaaaabbbbeeelllll Caaassssaaattttt …,” echoed a low, unearthly voice.

Nice job, Luke
, Cody thought. She swore he sounded just like a mummy speaking from the dead for the first time in centuries.

A claw-shaped hand, wrapped in layers of white toilet paper, suddenly shot up from behind the sarcophagus, casting a giant shadow on the walls from the flashlight beam.

Then an arm appeared …

And a shoulder …

And a head …

A body rose up, its arms extended, eerily facing Ms. Cassatt.

The hideous voice came again: “Miiiiiirrrrraaaaaabeellllllll Caaaaaaaaasssssssaaatttt …”

Luke the Mummy leaned toward the frightened woman, his clawed hands reaching for her.

Ms. Cassatt gave a deafening scream and dropped the statue.

N
ice going!” Sergeant Casey said to the Code Busters, after he and his two officers had taken Ms. Cassatt into custody. “You kids took a very big risk, and you could have gotten seriously hurt, but it was clever of you to dress like a mummy, son, and make all those weird sounds.”

Now that the standoff was over, the kids were back in the museum lobby, talking to the sergeant and Dr. Jordan. Ms. Stad had a protective arm wrapped around M.E. and was listening as the Code Busters
explained the details of their plan.

“We figured if we distracted Ms. Cassatt, you might have a chance to get her,” Cody said to the sergeant.

He shook his head. “Yeah, but it could have backfired, you know.”

The kids nodded.

“How did you make your voice sound like a mummy's?” Dr. Jordan asked.

Quinn explained, “There's an app for that. It's called Scary Voice Changer. You can do all kinds of things with your voice—sound like a robot or a mouse or an alien. Or make it sound like you're underwater. You can even add an echo.”

“The mummy app is awesome,” Luke said, grinning. He had pulled most of the toilet paper off, but a few pieces were still stuck inside his waistband and in his shoes. “Oooawwwww,” he added, demonstrating the mummy sound while wiggling his fingers.

“How did you know she was afraid of mummies?” Ms. Stad asked. She gave M.E. a squeeze.

“We didn't,” M.E. answered. “But we figured,
after she'd spent all these years hanging out with mummies, we might at least startle her.”

“Well, you did that,” the sergeant said. “I especially liked the flashing red light. I suppose you used an app for that, too?”

Cody nodded, then touched the icon on her phone. The room lit up with swirling red light.

“Pretty cool,” Dr. Jordan said. “I might have to add those tricks when I give talks to students. Maybe I'll even dress up like a mummy and use that mummy voice.”

Ms. Stad arched her eyebrow.

“Then again, maybe not,” he said, grinning sheepishly.

“So, what's going to happen to Ms. Cassatt?” Quinn asked.

“For now, jail,” the sergeant said. “I've got a couple of officers checking out her home. I have a feeling we'll find more artifacts she might have ‘replaced.' ”

“Is she a real forger?” Luke asked.

Dr. Jordan shook his head. “I doubt it. That's quite a skill to master. But she knows a lot of people in
the world of artifacts—some reputable, some not. It wouldn't be difficult for her to find a forger to make the fakes.”

“Then all she'd have to do is switch the real ones with the replicas when no one was around,” Quinn said. “I saw that in a movie once.”

“Yeah,” Luke said. “Then she could sell them on the black market.”

“Or keep them for herself,” M.E. added, “and pretend they were reproductions. I wouldn't mind having some fake Egyptian jewelry to wear.”

“Can you get those things back from the black market?” Quinn asked.

“Sometimes they turn up,” Dr. Jordan said. “But often they go missing for decades. It's a good thing you figured out what she was doing; otherwise, it could have been a lot worse.”

“Why did she do it?” Cody asked, shaking her head.

“Who knows why some people become greedy?” Dr. Jordan answered, holding up the recovered Eye of Horus and admiring it. “It's not always easy being
around all these beautiful treasures, knowing you'll never own them. Mirabel Cassatt loved her jewelry. I suppose she got tired of wearing imitations and wanted the real thing. And working here, she thought she could get away with it.”

“But she tried to make it look like I stole that Eye of Horus!” Cody said.

Dr. Jordan nodded. “She must have dropped it in your pocket at some point, to take the focus off herself.”

Cody remembered when Ms. Cassatt bumped into her, just before she accused her of stealing the artifact. That would have been the perfect opportunity to slip the Eye into her pocket. Sort of like a pickpocket, but in reverse.

“Well, I'm just glad this is over,” Ms. Stad said. “We're going to be very late getting all the students back to school. Our volunteers are calling the parents so they won't worry. I just hope we'll still be allowed to go on more field trips.”

“Me too,” said Quinn. “ 'Cause this one was awesome!” He fist-bumped Luke.

The adults laughed and shook their heads.

Awesome?
Cody thought about the close call she'd had with Ms. Cassatt and shivered. If it hadn't been for her friends, she might have ended up sharing eternal space with that old mummy. Not so awesome. But it was still nice to know she had helped save a bit of priceless history today.

While the adults chatted, Cody turned to her friends and signed,

Code Buster's Key and Solution found on
this page
,
this page
.

Then they all linked their index fingers—Cody to Luke, Luke to M.E., M.E. to Quinn, and Quinn back to Cody—to form a circle. It was the American Sign Language sign for “friendship.”

T
he Code Busters, along with the other sixth graders, were tired when they arrived back at school. It was an hour past the last bell, and the rest of the student body had gone home. Luckily, the kids had the weekend to rest up before school on Monday.

After a good night's sleep, Cody and her friends spent most of Saturday in their clubhouse, reliving the adventure.

“That field trip was awesome,” Quinn said as he sat down on the carpeted floor.

Luke nodded. “Dude, we actually discovered a forgery. How cool is that?”

“Pretty amazing,” Cody said, “even though it almost got us in trouble.”

“Yeah,” M.E. added. “I'm surprised Matt the Brat didn't have anything to do with it.”

The kids laughed.
That is a first
, Cody thought. He was the one who usually caused trouble. Maybe he was getting better. Cody shook her head. Naw, not Matt the Brat.

M.E. looked at Cody. “Why did you shake your head just now?”

Cody smiled. “No reason. Just thinking about everything. You know, we never did figure out who drew that last picture in the classroom. Or what it meant.”

“I guess we'll have to wait until Monday for the answer,” Luke said.

“Yeah, but what if Stad doesn't know either?” Quinn added. “And what if the person who did it never confesses?”

Cody nodded thoughtfully. “Steganography is
what started all of this—and that assignment to draw those pictures with hidden messages inside.”

“In a way, steganography is what led us to discover the fake Eye of Horus,” Luke said. “The Eye was hidden right in front of our eyes. We just didn't see it at first.”

“Well, I love learning Egyptian hieroglyphs,” M.E. said. “It's weird that people first thought they were just drawings of birds and hooks and things, but after that guy cracked the code, those symbols turned out to be letters and words.”

“Yeah, hieroglyphs are cool,” Cody said, sketching the Eye of Horus in her Code Busters notebook. “We need to use them more when we send secret messages. And steganography, too.”

“Except that everyone in class has a decoder card for hieroglyphs, so our messages won't be very secret,” M.E. said, staring at Cody's drawing. Cody used a ruler as she sketched each part of the Eye. When she was done, she labeled the sections with fractions.